


Future Tense and Past Imperfect

by peoriapeoria



Series: Fitter of the Species [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Amazon Steve Rogers, Bisexual Character, Gen, Gender, Gender or Sex Swap, Loss, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Serum made Steve fit to serve, but the fight was never in that bottle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Tense and Past Imperfect

Steve awoke, eyes fluttering. The room was wrong. Steve wasn't wearing anything expected, especially not for what seemed to be a private hospital room with a radio. This wasn't a ward and Steve wasn't under the covers. Whose deception was this?

Schmidt's plane. The Red Skull was going to plunge the world into more destruction than even a world war had already wrought. Berlin. One of the rockets had been marked Berlin. New York. Chicago. Paris. The huge plane had been damaged in the fight on the bridge. Schmidt had blustered after throwing a switch that without him the craft would plow into the Eastern Seaboard.

"We can fix the plane!"

"I'm not you, Howard!" Steve had found that he could shut off the autopilot, he could crash the plane. Nothing that Howard was saying made any sense. "Can you really believe you will fix this plane by radio?"

"I've a better chance than anyone."

Steve was never sure just what happened; maybe the cube falling through the plane hit something vital. He'd had some control of the plane as the ice filled the glass wall, but mostly he was just holding on, because no one wanted to die alone.

Who had fished him out? Steve paid attention to the baseball game. He'd been at the 1941 game, he'd still been about ninety pounds and a man. A lifetime ago, before Pearl Harbor, before the Serum.

He couldn't tell just what it was about the woman that came in was so off, until she became flustered, tried to stay calm. Steve hadn't expected to go right through the wall, it was a set, the 'outside' had been lights. They weren't set up right. After she said it was New York, the light wasn't right.

He got outside, through a building that was so big, and everything was insane. And then he saw. Steve Rogers was in New York. He could pick out enough landmarks, the light, the lights, these cars were so numerous, so different from the Expo.

"Captain Rogers, if you'd come with me." The speaker was taller than Gabe, bald, eyepatch, leather duster. Steve saw men and women in black suits in the crowd converging on them. "Sorry about the amateur hour back there. We've been spread a bit thin."

"You'll have to forgive me for being suspicious." Maybe this was another set, better built. Maybe he was still asleep. He did go with them, because otherwise someone was going to get hurt. He'd taken an oath to protect the American people. "What happened?"

"Nearly seventy years."

Steve looked around as he followed. This was nothing he could have come up with. He was led into a room with a long table and chairs that looked like they couldn't last seven years.

\------------------------

After Steve had drawn the map he'd seen rescuing Bucky, after he'd looked at maps and pictures and everything other thing they thought he could give them information about, Peggy took him to lab.

"Let's make you a real uniform." Howard Stark was utterly mad, it was the only explanation for the next thirty-seven hours. Agent Carter stayed for much of it, Steve supposed as a chaperone. Steve appreciated it, even if it was nearly as embarrassing as Howard's commentary.

He'd liked Peggy. She'd been there for quite a bit of his basic training, she'd been there for the treatment. She'd helped Steve get to Bucky. They were soldiers, he had to remind himself that.

In the end, the uniform wasn't what Steve had expected of Howard. Oh, it was flashy in its way, which Steve could see was useful since his team were softer targets. You had to really look to notice he wasn't a man. Steve might be a harsh critic.

"Now, since you took that shield with you, I had a few thoughts." Howard apparently invented like some doodled. Some of his thoughts were ridiculous, but the grooved disk was genius.

"Nice choice." That's when Howard shot him. And Peggy.

"What the hell?" Steve looked at Col. Phillips once the bullets stopped. "Looks like it works." Steve smiled. He supposed that was one way to test a shield. He started picking up spent slugs

\---------------------

"What happened to you?" Bucky had been asking him that question often.

"I joined the Army." He'd said the same thing when he'd been asked if he hadn't been shorter.

"Thought that was hair they were supposed to put on your chest."

That would have been a horrible combination.

"So, do you like what you see?" Bucky had that grin that prefaced so much trouble.

Steve had spent a couple of days trying not to look, and then there had been sketches. Some of those had been too scandalous to keep and he'd used as tinder.

"It was worth it."

\--------------------

The Commandos didn't treat it like a big thing, though of course they didn't know the whole truth. Dugan was the only one that had known Bucky before the cages. Falsworth spoke in allegories, Derneir said things Jones didn't translate. Morita was the most blunt.

Liberty Belle continued to exist in drawings and sometimes Steve shot propaganda pieces. Captain America was also becoming big. Actors played him in those reels, though the comic books were bigger.

The weirdest moment was seeing the fake Captain America in a real location with a photo of himself as Liberty Belle in his compass.

\--------------------------------

Steve looked at the clothes he'd been provided with. People had a strange thought of his time, or maybe of their own. At least he hadn't been brought dresses and skirts. The T-shirts he liked for the gym; no brassiere straps or bands they had elastic sewn in with a little shelf. He'd been a little surprised that he had both left and right placket shirts.

Steve spent a lot of time in the gym. He read. What was he supposed to do in this brave new world? Bucky was dead. Actually, most everyone was dead, because that's what sixty some years does. Peggy wasn't, but she wasn't well either. They'd spoken on the phone.

Steve went to split another bag. He did stitch them up.

\--------------------------------

Steve looks at New York, smoke streaming up. They've saved the city. Fury is playing games inside of games. He looks at their unlikely band. His team.


End file.
